Discount coupons and similar purchase incentives have long been distributed to consumers to promote the sale of goods or services. Typically, advertisers issue printed coupons which can be redeemed at a local retail outlet (or by mail) for a discount or refund upon making a purchase of goods identified by the coupon. While this method of promotion has proven to be effective, it has caused problems for manufacturers, consumers and merchants due to its massive inefficiency.
It has recently been reported that more than 300 billion printed coupons are distributed annually throughout the United States, and that only 2%–5% of such coupons are redeemed by consumers. Although it has also been reported that four out of every five consumers use discount coupons, the small percentage of discount coupons that are actually redeemed reveals that most consumers use discount coupons on an infrequent basis. This is likely due to the inconvenience associated with printed coupons.
For instance, in order to obtain a small number of relevant discount coupons, a consumer is normally required to search for and clip such coupons from a plurality of publications containing many other irrelevant and unwanted coupons. The consumer must thus clip, categorize, sort and store in an organized manner the relevant coupons for use upon his or her next visit to a retail outlet, such as a grocery store. This conventional method of coupon distribution has a disadvantage in that many consumers simply lack the time or initiative to search for and clip coupons. Thus, printed coupons issued by manufacturers and retailers generally reach only a small segment of the consuming public, i.e., those who clip coupons based upon personal interest or financial necessity. Although manufacturers may wish to reach a larger percentage of consumers having the greatest spending power, many such consumers do not clip coupons due to the inordinate amount of time required to do so.
Attempts to overcome this drawback include the coupon book and the discount card. Local merchants often participate in promotional campaigns including the use of coupon books which eliminate the need for consumers to search through local newspapers for such coupons. However, coupon books are generally subject-oriented and are impracticable for use in connection with a large variety of goods, such as groceries. A form of purchase incentive applicable to grocery stores and the like utilizes a discount card, which is similar in appearance to a credit card, and is distributed to all interested consumers. The card is imprinted with coded magnetic indicia to identify the cardholder. During checkout at a participating retail outlet, the magnetic indicia is read by a dedicated card reader. If the consumer has purchased goods for which a particular type of discount coupon is available, the consumer's bill is automatically credited by the total amount of applicable savings. However, this method does not overcome the foregoing drawbacks, and fails to inform the consumer of which coupons are available before making a purchasing decision. The only consumers whose purchasing decisions are potentially influenced by the available discounts are those who undertake to determine in advance which products are offering a discount via the discount card. This, however, is most likely the same small segment of consumers that are willing to dedicate time searching for and clipping relevant coupons. While this form of purchase incentive may serve to promote the participating retailers, it does not serve as a purchase incentive for specific goods.
Thus conventional attempts at overcoming the inconvenience associated with coupon distribution are either ineffective or require the consumer to dedicate an unreasonable amount of investigative time prior to making a purchase in order to locate discounted items.
Still another problem with printed coupons is the massive a fraud on the part of consumers, and, to an even greater extent, on the part of merchants. Retailers can generally obtain refunds without question by simply turning in coupons without any proof that such coupons were redeemed by consumers. As a result, many unscrupulous merchants seek reimbursement for counterfeit coupons or authentic coupons which have not, in fact, been redeemed by consumers. There is no convenient way to prevent such fraud with the use of printed coupons. Many large retail outlets and superstores have installed computerized bar code readers for coupon validation purposes. Some such systems accept coupons only when associated with an invoice identifying goods that have actually been purchased. However, the vast majority of retailers lack the resources or the coupon redemption volume to justify the acquisition of such equipment.
The explosive growth of the Internet as a means of electronic consumer-based commerce has made the Internet a suitable medium for the targeted distribution of discount coupons to consumers. Consumers are increasingly accessing online resources to conduct purchasing transactions over the World Wide Web. Currently, online advertising and promotion of goods and services are among the most popular uses of the Internet, and the Internet has become an extremely significant advertising tool. In addition, the growth trend experienced by the Internet is likely to be equaled or exceeded by a similar trend in the television industry (i.e., the so-called interactive TV), the handheld computer industry, and the wireless communication industry, all of which are generally well suited for the targeted distribution of discount coupons and other purchase incentives.
However, conventional Web-based advertising tools do not provide for adequate targeting of promotional materials and are not particularly well suited for the distribution of discount coupons. Consumers are generally exposed to Web sites only when they are uncovered in response to a specific search using a search engine or by the entry of the address (commonly referred to as a domain name) of the Web site. To increase their exposure, many companies have also purchased advertising space within more popular Web sites of other companies or organizations. For instance, many advertisers purchase so-called “advertising banner” (or “ad banner”) space within the Web page of a popular Web site or the home page of an online service, such as America Online. The ad banner allows consumers to “click-through” (i.e., specify a link) to the Web site (or home page) of the advertiser. In many cases, the use of an ad banner substantially increases the advertiser's exposure to consumers.
While Web sites and ad banners are important for the establishment of an online presence, they are not suitable for the targeted distribution of promotional materials, such as discount coupons. Ad banners are served to all recipients of a Web site, which may include a large number of disinterested consumers. In addition, conventional Web-based advertising methods do not target the distribution of promotional materials to consumers interested in purchasing specific products.
Various methods for online coupon distribution currently implemented on the Internet are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,761,648, 5,855,007, 5,806,044 and 5,710,886, which are incorporated herein by reference. Some of these methods involve the untargeted serving of printable discount coupons on the basis of a selected geographic location. Other online coupon distribution systems simply provide users with an exhaustive list of available coupons that may be downloaded and printed. These methods of coupon distribution suffer from the same drawbacks of printed coupons in that they require consumers to search through lists of many irrelevant coupons to locate a few pertinent coupons.
In another known Web-based coupon distribution system, registered users are provided with a list of grocery coupons available after the consumer purchases selected items on the list. This system prompts registered users to select the national grocery store chain at which they shop. In response, the server downloads to the user a file containing a scannable UPC code, or bar code, along with the identity of goods which must first be purchased before savings coupons will be issued. Upon checkout, the consumer is given discount coupons redeemable against the purchase of any grocery items based upon the purchase of the selected items. This system, however, is available for use only with national grocery chains and fails to provide consumers with the ability to obtain discounts for a current transaction.
In addition to the inability to distribute promotional information, such as discount coupons, on a sufficiently targeted basis, current Web-based monitoring techniques make it difficult for individual companies to obtain meaningful data concerning the demand for their products. Although Web site administrators can monitor consumer use and interaction with their own Web sites and ad banners, no current means provides for the accurate monitoring of consumer purchasing habits on a widespread basis independent of computer use or Internet access. The monitoring of Web site and ad banner access does not necessarily equate with consumer purchasing habits, and while the value and effectiveness of such resources can be accurately monitored by known monitoring techniques, such techniques do not provide for the adequate targeting of purchase incentives. As a result, much of the promotional information provided by a server over a public network is untargeted. To the extent that promotional information is served on a targeted basis, such targeting is not necessarily beneficial since it is not done in response to user requests nor based on actual purchasing decisions.
Due to the inconvenience of conventional coupon distribution methods and the limited monitoring abilities of conventional coupon distribution systems, it has been difficult to build customer loyalty or to attract new customers through the use of targeted purchase incentives such as discount coupons. Only with knowledge of a consumer's purchasing habits, such as preferred brands, timing and quantity of purchases, and other relevant purchasing information, can such targeting be achieved on an adequate basis. This valuable information has thus far eluded manufacturers.
Due largely to the inability of current discount coupon distribution services to adequately target discount coupons and promotional materials to interested consumers, use of the Internet for the dissemination of promotional material has essentially resulted in an increased amount of unsolicited junk mail. In other words, the same or similar packages of mostly useless discount coupons and promotional literature received by consumers by mail are being served to the same consumers via Internet resources, such as email facilities, with the same inefficiency.
In view of the foregoing, there is currently a need for a data processing system and method for the targeted distribution of discount coupons and other promotional materials over a network which provides manufacturers and offerers of goods and services with the ability to generate and distribute discount coupons only to interested consumers based on actual purchasing decisions, via a centralized coupon server, and the ability to monitor the effectiveness of the coupons. There is also a need to provide individual consumers with the ability to easily obtain discount coupons and other purchase incentives which are tailored to their individual purchasing habits, and to avoid the automatic transmission of large numbers of irrelevant, unsolicited and unwanted discount coupons. Current online coupon distribution services are not capable of adequately targeting coupon offers and merely serve the same information to all users. There is a further need for means for enabling the simplified monitoring of coupon redemption. Since HTTP or Web servers cannot automatically determine the purchasing habits of individual consumers, Web site administrators and advertisers cannot accurately determine the effectiveness of their resources. Thus, targeted service of promotional information and purchase incentives is difficult.